Calamari Press is an American small-press book publishing company, founded in 2003 by Derek White. It started as an outlet for White's own home-brewed chapbooks and collaborations of art, visual poetry and prose, and the literary magazine Sleepingfish. Early collaborators included Carlos M. Luis, Sandy Baldwin and Wendy Collin Sorin.
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In April 2005, Calamari Press published its first perfect bound book, The Singing Fish by Peter Markus, which received acclaimed reviews in places like American Book Review, New York Press, DIAGRAM and PopMatters. This was followed by Land of the Snow Men by Norman Lock (a literary canard penned under the name of George Belden), Trilce by James Wagner (homophonic translations of Cesar Vallejo's Trilce), and The Night I Dropped Shakespeare on the Cat by John Olson.
By the fourth issue of Sleepingfish (issue #0.875), Robert Lopez had joined Derek White in editing the publication, which still contained smatterings of visual poetry and text/image, but more and more experimental prose, perhaps in response to the void left behind by the folding of 3rd Bed. The fifth issue of Sleepingfish (#0.925) was published in May 2007.
In the fall of 2006, Calamari Press reissued Peter Markus' first book, Good, Brother, followed by White's own Poste Restante. In early 2007 came Part of the World by Robert Lopez and The Revisionist by Miranda Mellis, an excerpt of which appeared in the June 2007 issue of Harper's.
Calamari Press books are distributed by Small Press Distribution.